They Landed At Badagry About The Beginning Of
December 1825, And Set Out On Their Journey On The 7th.
At the outset,
they were so imprudent as to sleep in the open air, in consequence of
which Morrison and Pearce were attacked with fever, and Clapperton with
ague.
On the 23d, Morrison set out on his return to the ship, but died
before he reached it. On the 27th, Captain Pearce died; and Clapperton
was left to pursue his journey, attended only by Richard Lander, his
faithful and attached servant (whose name has been since associated with
the discovery of the Niger's termination), and Pascoe, an African.
After proceeding sixty miles into the interior, they reached the kingdom
of Yarriba or Eyeo. The soil is fertile, and well cultivated, yielding
abundant harvests of Indian corn, millet, yams, and cotton. The females
are industrious, and were frequently seen carrying burdens, spinning
cloths, and dyeing them with indigo. Here they met with a much better
reception than at Houssa, where they had been looked upon as Caffres, and
enemies of the Prophet; the negroes of Eyeo, on the contrary, regarded
them as beings of almost a superior order. At the entrance to each town,
they were greeted by thousands, with every demonstration of respect, and
the night of their arrival was sometimes spent by the natives in
festivity.
Their route now lay through a romantic range of hills, "the passes of
which were peculiarly narrow and rugged, hemmed in by gigantic blocks of
granite six or seven hundred feet high, sometimes fearfully overhanging
the road." Every level spot along the bottom, and even in the cliffs of
the mountains, bore crops of yams, millet, and cotton. Lander describes
one of the lovely spots that so beautifully relieved the sterner
magnificence of the rocks. "At noon we descended into a delightful
valley, situated in the bottom of a ridge of rocks, which effectually hid
it from observation till one approached almost close to it. It was
intersected with streams and rills, the elegant palm, and the
broad-leaved banana, covered with foliage, embellishing the sheltered and
beautifully romantic spot. In the centre was a sheet of water, resembling
an artificial pond, in which were numbers of young maidens from the
neighbouring town of Tschow, some of them reposing at full length on its
verdant banks, and some frisking and basking in the sun-beams, whilst
others were bathing in the cool waters." After leaving the mountains, the
travellers came to Tschow, a walled town of considerable size. As the
road was infested with robbers, they here procured an escort from the
king of Yarriba, consisting of 200 horsemen, and 400 warriors on foot,
armed with spears, bows, and arrows. The troops were dressed in a
grotesque fashion, some wearing gaudy robes, while others were in rags.
The whole cavalcade had a wild and romantic appearance as it wound along
the narrow and crooked paths, to the sound of rude instruments of music.
At noon, they came in sight of the city of Kakunda, picturesquely
situated at the foot of a mountain, and surrounded with trees.
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